Doctor Who: It’s time to give Yaz a story of her own

Doctor Who season 11 has proven adept at telling character focused stories. But it really hasn’t given new companion Yaz enough to do.

The most recent episode of Doctor Who, “The Tsuranga Conundrum,” definitely focused on character above plot. The main story was pretty basic, involving a hospital ship, an alien monster and the Doctor trying to save everyone’s lives. As such things go, it wasn’t a particularly memorable episode. But what really made it worth watching was its character beats, as Ryan and Graham bonded while helping a pregnant man deliver his son, a celebrated fighter pilot made up with her estranged brother, and a medical technical learned she was more than capable of facing a crisis on her own.

But the thing is, while Doctor Who was busy whipping up stories for multiple secondary characters, new companion Yasmin Khan still largely finds herself on the outside looking in.

Sure, Yaz got a big hero moment this week, facing off with the simultaneously scary and adorable Pting alongside alien android Ronan. She even dropped kicked the little monster down a hallway! And, yes, she shared another adorable moment with Ryan. (Ryaz lives, y’all!!) But we didn’t exactly learn anything about her, get any new insights into her character, or even see her onscreen all that much.

This is one of the dangers of such a large core cast. With four people — at a minimum — to balance stories between, plus however many secondary guest characters-of-the-week pop up, it’s natural that not everyone is going to get the spotlight every week. But it often can feel as though Doctor Who hasn’t quite figured out exactly what to do with Yaz yet.

As a character, she’s painfully underwritten. We’re five episodes into season 11, and we still barely know her. Yes, Yaz is clearly dedicated to her job, and wants the chance to do and see more in her life than she’s had the opportunity to thus far. But… that hasn’t exactly happened yet. She’s had the least to do of any of the companions thus far, and even the episode in which we met her family (“Arachnids in the U.K.”), we pretty much only learned that her mother’s overbearing and her dad… likes to collect trash? What was the point of even involving her family in that episode?

Part of the issue is that, while all three companions have preexisting relationships to some extent, the bond between Ryan and Graham is simply stronger and more immediate than the one between Ryan and a girl he went to primary school with years ago.

Ryan and Graham have so much to sort out between them emotionally — their grief over Grace’s death, and their struggle to build a real relationship with one another to name just two. Ryan and Yaz don’t have this sort of bond, no matter how cute their flirting might be, and she knows Graham even less. Which is fine, of course, part of the fun is watching this little ragtag group become a real family over time.

But Doctor Who needs to give Yaz a chance to fit in with everyone else and to have an emotional arc of her own, instead of using her to fill in time around Ryan and Graham’s stories.

Thankfully next week’s episode, “Demons of the Punjab,” looks as though it will finally place Yaz front and center in an installment that seems to somehow connect to her own family’s history in Pakistan. Hopefully, this means Doctor Who will finally give Yaz a story that is worth the wait.

 Doctor Who season 11 continues next Sunday at 8 p.m. EST on BBC America.